


Nevermind

by deerntheheadlights



Category: American Horror Story: Murder House
Genre: AU its 1993 and everyone is alive, American Horror Story - Freeform, American Horror Story: Murder House - Freeform, Angst, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Not Canon Compliant, Slow Burn, no canon just me and my AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:14:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24116371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deerntheheadlights/pseuds/deerntheheadlights
Summary: What scared him most, he decided, was not the prospect of Violet not feeling the same, but the idea that she did; the idea that she could like him now, maybe even love him later, and then realize that he was unworthy of any of it. It wasn’t as if he’d never had a crush before, he’d even had girlfriends in the past, but something about Violet— about the way she was the smartest person in the room but didn’t need everyone else to know it, about the way she cared deeply about the things she believed were important and couldn’t care less about the things that weren’t, about the way she wasn’t afraid of anything— was different. Good different.
Relationships: Violet Harmon & Tate Langdon, Violet Harmon/Tate Langdon
Comments: 17
Kudos: 40





	1. The American Dream

**Author's Note:**

> ***GENERAL TRIGGER WARNING***

The slow September breeze through the open window made the binds rustle quietly underneath the sound of 99.2 ROCK, California’s “premiere” alternative rock station, playing the same Alice In Chains song they’d already played 3 times that day. He couldn’t be bothered to walk the 10 feet over to the desk, turn off the radio, and make a return trip back to his bed, which he had not left in coming up on 16 hours, and instead opted to continue staring mindlessly at the rough white paint on his ceiling and hope to God that sleep would find him before he’d be subject to the same song for the 4th time.

He could hear high heeled shoes carefully climbing the staircase from the first floor to the second, pausing, presumably to catch themselves, as their wearer stumbled, half-drunk, to his bedroom door and knocked three times in quick succession. The door had been shut and locked all day and he had every intention of keeping it that way. 

Three more knocks. 

Three more. 

Then a curse. 

And surrender. 

The clock next to his bed read 6:43 pm as the sunset played its final act out over the Los Angeles skyline, the wind was starting to pick up some and he quietly wondered to himself if maybe it would rain. He sat up, wiping exhaustion from his eyes, and pushed the blankets to the foot of his bed. The yellow sunset reflecting from the blue walls of his bedroom made everything look green as he stood up and finally quieted the radio DJ who was in the middle of reciting some prewritten advertisement for some seedy used car lot off the 95. 

He sighed, looking around his room was like looking inside of his head: a mess. Jeans and sweaters and tee shirts and shoes laid scattered across the floor, posters of gory horror movies and rock concerts littered the dark blue walls haphazardly taped-not-tacked so as to avoid a lecture from his mother about holes in walls and property values. In the mirror hanging from his closet door, he could see himself, all too-long hair, lanky limbs, and dark circles. He stared at himself for a second, intensely. Making eye contact with his own soul, half expecting the reflected him to reach out through the mirror and pull him in.

He closed his eyes and shook his head like an etch-a-sketch, erasing all the bad thoughts, and went back to the window behind his bed, opening it completely and removing the screen. The bed creaked as he half stepped off and reached into the little drawer in the table beside his bed, I know I have some in here he thought, swiping his hand from one side of the drawer to the other and stopping as his fingers grazed the rough matchbook strike strip. 

It was still hot outside despite the sun having gone down. He sat on the roof outside of his bedroom and looked out over his neighborhood wondering why anyone would actively choose to live somewhere so boring and empty and careless. He put a cigarette to his lips and lit a match. A dog barked at a kid on an orange bicycle. The crickets chirped loudly, and the cicadas screamed even louder. He took a drag, the smoke filled his lungs, the cigarette burned red, he could hear a siren in the distance and an airplane overhead. 

He exhaled relief and ran his fingers through his hair.

Don’t start crying.  
Don’t start crying. 

He imagined himself somewhere else, somewhere far, far away; he’d read enough Stephen King to think Maine sounded like the close thing to paradise on Earth. He could see himself having a little house to himself somewhere where no one knew his name or where he came from. He blew that thought away with the smoke from his lungs and wiped the building tears from his eye with his thumb. 

He put the cigarette out on his forearm and climbed back into his window, crawled back under the blankets, and listened to life happen around him, without him, until he eventually fell asleep. 

The alarm hit his ears like a train, and he shot up straight in bed, gasping and panicked. He’d been having a nightmare, or a least he hoped it was a nightmare. The alarm clocked continued to batter his eardrums as he steadied his breathing and regained his composure enough to check the time.

6:45 am. Monday, September 3th 1993. Shit. 

The sun had one just begun rising and the pink light made the blue walls purple. With a sigh he pulled himself up and out of bed, sitting with his legs over the side and his head in his hands. The burn on his arm was still angry from the night before, he picked at the little bits of burned skin surrounding it before it started to bleed. He reached under his bed, pulled out a small metal box, set it on the bed next to him, and opened it:  
2 razor blades, 1 half carton of cigarettes, a lighter, a bottle of prescribed but untaken anti-depressants, a handful of stray pills he’d swiped from his mother’s medicine cabinet, a box Band-Aids, and 52 dollars cash.

He took 2 of the bandages and placed them over the burn in an X. The last thing he needed was some teacher seeing it and being “worried” or “concerned for his well-being” or just generally making his life their problem. 

The sunrise gave him just enough light to dress by, he rarely ever got dressed with the lights on, he didn’t particularly care what he looked like but he also didn’t want to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror, knowing he’d hate what he’d see. Blue jeans with a hole in one knee, a grey tee shirt, a black sweater, and the same shoes he’d worn every day for the last 3 years. The late September afternoon would likely be too hot for a sweater, he thought, but he was experiencing the kind of emotional pain for which the only real analgesic is your favorite sweater, so he decided to brave the heat wave anyway. 

He stood with his face so close to the mirror his breathe made a ring of fog on the glass. He blinked and the other him did too. His eyes were a little bit red and had dark purple rings around them. He looked exhausted. He felt like hell. He ran his fingers through his hair, blinked at himself, and turned away, grabbing his bag from the floor and shutting his bedroom door behind him as he left. 

7:00, said the wall clock in the kitchen. He grabbed a banana from the bowl on the table, his house key from the counter, his skateboard from the hall, and left through the front door, letting it slam shut behind him. 

“Tonya Hilman,” his teacher called roll. “Here.”  
He hadn’t actually been to his 1st period class in a week on account of it being math and him hating math. 

“Tommy Jacobs,” he continued. “Miles Johnson, Harper Kissel.”  
He knew his Mr. Faris would make a whole production out of him having shown up to class, he was the kind of teacher who just couldn’t ever bring himself to give anyone a break. Typical, for a math teacher. 

“Tate Langdon.” He said, looking Tate up and down in his seat. “Mr. Langdon, nice to see that you’ve chosen to join us in trigonometry today. I was beginning to worry that you had opted instead to repeat this class in summer school.” He finished with a half, taunting, laugh.  
Fuck off, Faris. 

He thought about grabbing his bag and leaving, walking out of the front doors of the school, and never looking back. But he didn’t. Instead, he lowered his eyes and pretended that his face wasn’t red, his heart wasn’t pounding, and his ears weren’t ringing. 

Tate spent the rest of first period with his head down, doodling in the margins of his notebook in-between formulas he didn’t understand or care to understand. He only caught Mr. Faris’ eye once and returned his look of judgment with an eyeroll and went back to his sketch.

Two more classes went by rather uneventfully. During chemistry he watched a bird building its nest in a tree from the second-story window. It looked like a robin, but he couldn’t be sure and decided he’d try to figure it out in the library during his study hall period. He did. It was. And he almost felt proud of himself for having made a correct identification from 15 feet on the other side of a pane glass window. He spent his lunch period smoking, reading, and smoking more behind the gymnasium. There was a pep rally happening in the courtyard and just the thought of being surrounded by so many of his peers and watching them praise the football team for being less mediocre than those in the surrounding region was enough to get him to skip lunch completely. Plus, despite having not eaten in almost 2 full days, he wasn’t hungry. This concerned him, but only to the extent that he didn’t want to get a headache later in the day. He watched the flags dance on the flagpole in the wind and listened to the cheerleaders perform another go-team-hoo-rah chant before the shrill bell announced that it was time to return to class.

His English teacher, Mr. Miller, wasn’t in the classroom when Tate arrived to class, which was odd since he had, as usual, been late. He sat in his usual seat, back left-hand corner closest to the window 2 empty desks from the nearest person, and was fidgeting with the fraying edge of his sweater when his teacher finally came into the room followed closely by a student Tate wasn’t sure if he recognized. 

“Go ahead and take any open seat, Violet,” Miller told the girl. Violet. Her expression never wavered but the way she scanned the room from right to left and back again exposed whatever discomfort she was experiencing. She walked to the back of the room and took the desk closet to Tate. The whole class turned and watched her as she effectively committed social suicide on her first day. Even Miller looked on with a raised eyebrow as Violet situated herself in the desk next to the only student in the class that he couldn’t get to actively participate if he paid him. 

She must be new, otherwise she’d know not to sit near me, he thought. He looked over at her, catching her eye for half a second before they both looked away quickly.

Mr. Miller spent the class period lecturing on The Great Gatsby. Tate had read it. He even liked it. But he wasn’t about to let anyone know that. He sketched the robin from earlier on the inside cover of his book and half-listened to his classmates and the teacher discuss Fitzgerald’s use of color imagery and the idea of the “American Dream.” He went around the room and asked each of the students what their American Dream is and, as expected, they all really deeply desired picket fences and 9to5s and seemed to miss the point of the book completely. Heather Greene, valedictorian, teacher’s pet, and general pain in the ass, gave some impromptu speech about how “the American Dream will remain unattainable until every American has equal opportunities for success despite race, class, or creed, etc. etc. etc.” which annoyed Tate, not because he thought she was wrong, she’s exactly right, but because he doubted that she actually believed any of what she was saying and only said it because she knew it would make her sound right.  
Since it was Violet’s first day, she was spared the torment of forced participation in a class discussion. Tate, on the other hand, was not so lucky. Mr. Miller was not about to let him off that easy, especially since he had gotten over 100% on the last test without having actually done any of the homework, and Miller had realized that Tate wasn’t as dumb as he wanted everyone to believe he was.

“Tate, what’s your American Dream? What do you want?”

Nothing. He couldn’t say that.

“Nothing,” he said anyway. 

“Nothing? Nothing at all?”

“Nope,” the word was punctuated with hard eye contact; a stand-off. He would not avert his gaze until Miller did first. It felt like time stopped altogether until Miller, reluctantly and with obvious irritation, sighed and moved on to the next student. Tate could feel a set of eyes on him, drilling a hole until his side, he didn’t need to look to know who and where it was coming from.

Violet.


	2. Shelves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Trigger Warning: Self-harm, Suicide mention, Mental Illness**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set about a week after Ch. 1, think Saturday night, featuring a flashback or two that I tried to mark with a (***) so, hopefully, it's clear where in time we are.

He turned on the faucet and let the water wash over his wrist; he watched it as it ran across his arm and picked up a copper-colored tint before circling the drain and disappearing. It stung; he closed his eyes and tried to focus on the sound of the running water, on the pain in his arm, on the pain in his chest, his shaking hands:

Inhale. Hold. Exhale. 

Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

Inhale. Hold.

One last long exhale, he opened his eyes and found his reflection in the mirror; blond curls and bloodshot eyes. The dark circles made it obvious that he’d been up all night, he’d been up for going on two nights. The house was quiet save the faucet running in the upstairs bathroom and the world outside of the house was still, the sun would be up soon and with it would come the chaos he’d like nothing more than to avoid. He made faces at himself in the mirror and he knew, of course, that it was his reflection looking back at him, but his reflection couldn’t have felt more detached from his body. He waved his hand in front of his face and was unsettled in knowing that it was his hand that he controlled with his mind and that he was, in fact, alive. 

Tate. 

Tate.

Tate.

Saying his name over and over in the mirror until his body and reflection became one again. With his right hand, he turned off the faucet, and with his left opened the cabinet the mirror was built into, slowly so as not to make too much noise and risk waking his mother. He took down a box of Band-Aids and a medical bandage before sitting on the edge of the tub and patting his arm dry with a towel. The cuts still felt like they were burning as he carefully places bandages over them and wrapped his arm from fingers to forearm. It was part of the ritual, applying careful first aid to wounds self-inflicted. 

Tate stayed seated on the edge of the bathtub for a while, he held his head in his hands and kept his eyes locked on a cracked piece of tile next to his right foot until his vision blurred, and his fingers turned to fists in his hair. 

“I have to stop this, or I will die,” he whispered, over and over again until the repetition of the words lined up with the beating of his heart and he could repeat the sentiment without having to say it. Tears began to form and dampen his eyelashes, he thumbed them away and stood, taking one last look at himself in the mirror, before he quietly opened the door, turned off the light, and made his way back to his own bedroom holding the door while he opened it to make sure his retreat was as silent as possible. 

The clock on his bedside table said it was after 2 a.m. and Tate felt exhausted but not tired; his brain could run marathons or move mountains, but his body felt like it could-would-should give out at any minute. He opened the window next to his bed and lit a cigarette, he knew his mother would have a fit if she knew he was smoking in the house, or smoking at all, but he couldn’t find it in him to care enough not to. He was supposed to be out with his friends. His best, and only, friend Jack had planned to pick him up and they were going to go explore this old, condemned factory building that they’d seen a few weeks ago but hadn’t had the chance to investigate; but Jack and his on again off again girlfriend Sadie were in the middle of switching off again and Jack— promising Tate free weed in exchange for his trouble— had bailed to go fight the same fight they’d been having for almost 8 months. So, instead of spending the night breaking-and-entering, Tate was left alone, the only person in his house awake at what was approaching 3 o’clock in the morning., to smoke cigarettes and imagine a future away from the house, from high school, from himself. 

“I should hang myself,” he thought. Somewhere off in the distance a car honked loudly, and another returned the gesture, “or throw myself off the 75 overpass.” He examined the ash that had fallen onto his windowsill and blew it out into the night to be picked up by the breeze.  
***  
His mother had come home drunk that evening, not out of the ordinary for the Langdon family, she’d claimed to have had some “meeting” with some “client” about the dogs she was training for him, but Tate knew that this more than likely meant that the meeting had lasted all of an hour before Constance made her way to the hotel bar and helped herself to as many gin and tonics as the bartender was legally allowed to serve her before drunkenly climbing into the back of a cab to come home and become Tate’s problem. He’d been in the back yard when she finally stumbled into the house. California kept the trees perpetually green and, despite it being September, there was a family of birds nesting in the large tree adjacent to the house. Tate would sometimes sit under that tree for hours listening to the birds play house in their nest; he liked birds, he wished he could fly away like they can. 

Constance, words slurred and almost tripping over her own high heel, dragged Tate by the shirt into the house yelling about a message left by the school on the house’s answering machine about Tate’s poor attendance. The vice-principal wanted to meet with her about Tate’s behavior and truancy; someone outside of the home wanted to confront her about her family’s imperfection. 

“Why do you do this to your family? Why do you do this to me?” she screamed at him, nearly sobbing as she pounded her fists against his chest. He broke away from her grasp but narrowly missed the glass being flung across the room at his right shoulder. The glass hit the wall in front of him and shattered into a million pieces while hurried footsteps on the stairs announced his sister Addie’s retreat from the television room to her room, next to Tate’s upstairs. She’d been watching cartoons and eating a microwave dinner that Tate made for her when the fight started and would not be sticking around to watch its conclusion. 

Tate spun around, cursing at his mother,  
“What the fuck is wrong with you??”

“With me? What is wrong with you? You’re smart, you’re beautiful, and you squander your gifts and talents! You waste your life and embarrass me; you make me look like a bad mother and I will not be taken for a fool, Tate!” 

“I don’t think good mothers crawl home blind drunk and throw cups at their sons’ heads! But what would I know about good mothers since it isn’t like I have one!” He moved quickly towards the stairs, Constance grabbed him again by the arm, turned him around, and slapped him hard across his face. Tate pushed her away and raced up the stairs beating Constance, who had fallen on the second flight, to his room where he locked himself in while she pounded against the door with closed fists yelling that he’d “never amount to anything” and how she wished she could have “had a better son” instead of the “worthless, defiant, embarrassment of a child” she had in Tate. With one last bang and a few curses, Constance staggered to her own room and slammed the door shut. 

Tate slumped to the ground with his back against the door, her insults didn’t make him sad so much as they made his blood boil. His blood had been boiling all day, from Eddie Caspar pushing him against the locker before school to getting caught skipping his math class and now Constance’s drunken ravings, he was sick of it. Without thinking and in one swift motion he stood, moved to his bed, pulled the metal box out from beneath it, opened it, removed a razor blade, closed his eyes, and made 3 jagged cuts on his forearm; relief now, consequences later. 

When he opened his eyes again, he was in his bathroom running water over the cuts and making careful eye contact with himself.  
***  
He exhaled smoke and released the memory of the night’s events with it, switching his thoughts to a new, much less miserable topic. Every day for the last week the new girl, Violet, had sat next to him in English class. She didn’t have to, it was one of the few classes without hard and fast seat assignments, but she did anyway, and he liked it. Whenever one of their classmates gave a stupid answer in response to one of Mr. Miller’s stupid questions, Tate could hear Violet scoff quietly or out of the corner of his eye he’d catch her rolling hers. She intrigued him, and when you’re someone who spends most of their time bored and uninterested, anything or anyone even moderately intriguing is a welcome sight. He thought that he interested her too. A few times he had felt her eyes on him, examining thoroughly like a child examines a dead thing: with a little bit of curiosity and a little bit of contempt. 

They even dressed similarly, he noticed; she wore cardigans twice her size and a perpetual scowl that matched his. He’d seen her seated behind the bleachers during their lunch period smoking with headphones on listening to a CD and reading a book whose title he couldn’t see clearly from where he sat. If she had noticed him noticing her, she didn’t make any note of it, but he couldn’t help but think that she took after his own heart.  
***  
They’d only spoke once. Briefly. In the library during study hall. Tate was seated on the floor near the shelves housing the school library’s meager poetry section; he didn’t love poetry, but he admired how poets could fit so much feeling into so few lines, he always felt like he never had enough space to feel completely. Half reading a Lord Byron collection and half trying to decide whether he’d finish the day or try to talk Jack into sneaking off-campus with him, he saw Violet approach and stop at the shelf opposite him. She saw him and gave a quick and courteous smile, “Hey.”

They exchanged pleasantries and she turned to face the poetry shelves, running her finger along the spines until she found the one she was looking for and pulled it from its place in line. She held the book to her chest and turned to face Tate again, looking at him for a moment before speaking again.

“I like him too—” she said, pointing at the book he had laid on his crossed legs. “Byron. He’s cool. Sort of morbid though, I guess. And a prick.”

Tate looked up at her from his position on the floor, “he’s the kind of person you’re glad is history, because if he were here right now, you’d just want to kick his insufferable ass.”

“Yeah, exactly. See you in class.” It seemed as though she had made his decision for him. She turned and walked away from him, he watched as she disappeared behind rows and rows of books and tables. He did see her in class, in her usual seat next to his.  
***  
Flicking the cigarette butt out of the open window, he tried to picture what kind of CDs she listened to; he hoped that she had good taste. He considered the way that Violet looked at him in class, could she really be looking for something engaging in him, or was he only projecting his own feelings onto her? If she kept looking would she only end up hating what she saw? Did she wonder what CDs he listened to? The pain in his arm subsided almost completely— save for a quick sting if he moved it too quickly— and the sound of his heartbeat pounding hard and fast in his ears had quieted to a dull roar.


	3. Earl Grey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **General Trigger Warning: Mental Health, Mental Illness, Self-Injury mention**

“And how do you feel when you’re having those thoughts?” 

Tate sat, legs crossed, on a chair facing the doctor who clicked his pen against his leg so incessantly that Tate gave actual thought to lunging at him and stabbing the pen directly into his chest. The office walls were plastered with a noxious yellow wallpaper and Tate wondered if they made that choice intentionally or if the irony of a yellow-wallpapered psychologist’s office had escaped whoever did the interior decorating. He mindlessly chewed on a stray yarn from his sweater sleeve and stared down with the doctor’s shoes; brown leather loafers with purple striped socks. A bold choice for a head shrinker, he thought. 

“Are you listening?” They made quick eye contact before Tate redirected his focus back to the shoes and then to the pictures on the bookshelves behind the blue chair in which Dr. Abner was seated. “When you have the thoughts that you described to me, how do you feel?” 

Tate quickly uncrossed his legs and sat forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “Out of control,” he said. “I feel out of control, and sick. Like I’ll be sick forever and never be better.” He ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath. 

The meeting between Constance and the Vice-Principal Baker the previous week had not gone well. He told Constance about Tate’s poor attendance, how he’d show up late, miss classes, disappear after the lunch period and not be seen for the rest of the day— if he bothered to show up for school at all— and when he was in class, he’d sleep or draw through every lecture. He had not turned in a single assignment for over a month. Mr. Baker was “concerned” about Tate; all his teachers were. Tate was assigned the annoying but apt title of “bright, but troubled,” and it was suggested that Constance have Tate “talk to somebody.” The next day, Constance made him an appointment for later that week with the first psychologist listed in the phone book and on Thursday, after driving him to school to make sure he went and picking him up to make sure he’d go, Tate went to his first appointment. 

“Are you afraid of the thoughts? Do they make you feel worried, or scared?” Dr. Abner probably wasn’t a bad guy, Tate thought. He was young enough to not be old but too old to really understand what it was like to be 17 and sick like Tate was sick. There was a disconnect, as there often is. “How do you deal with the thoughts when they come?” Still no response. 

“Tate, I can’t help you if you don’t let me. I think you want to let me help you, so you have to give me something to work with.”

Sharp inhale. Tate’s head popped up from its previous position in his hands, startling the doctor slightly with his sudden movement. “Can I smoke?” he asked, Dr. Abner gave him a weary look; but, figuring he was going to have to give before he could take, he nodded at Tate, who had already pulled a beat-up pack of cigarettes out of his jean’s pocket. 

“One condition, you answer all of the questions I have in the time it takes you to finish that.” 

“Deal.” 

***

Violet had been sitting next to Tate in Mr. Miller’s English class for 3 weeks exactly that Monday, but they’d only spoken a handful of times; almost exclusively when they were made to as part of a class assignment and then only when Tate had actually shown up to class. Sometimes he’d let his inner monologue slip out just loud enough for Violet to catch and when she laughed, he couldn’t help but smile and feel a sense of accomplishment. Violet was hard to read, even for Tate who usually prided himself on his ability to see through people’s bullshit and facades. Her expression never once gave her away, she always seemed so sure when she spoke, and she never said enough about herself for it to matter in the first place whether any of it was true or not. He envied her, in that way; he was the kind of person who wore his heart on his sleeve and his emotions on his face, much to his displeasure. He admired someone who could seem so put together on the outside regardless of what may have been happening within.

With the The Great Gatsby unit coming to a close, Mr. Miller decided that, in lieu of a test, he’d assign a project to be completed in groups. 

“Half of going to school is learning how to work with texts and problems, but the other half is learning how to work with people,” he’d said in response to a chorus of unimpressed groans. The groups were, allegedly, randomly selected; however, one need not look too hard to find the method in Miller’s “random selection.” Tate’s group was himself, Derek Kirkpatrick, Heather Greene, and Violet; three high-achievers and a burnout for them to carry. Derek and Heather, less than thrilled with their group roster, moved to the seats closest to Tate and Violet’s corner. 

“Go,” Miller instructed, “meet with your groups, you have the rest of the period to come up with a game plan.” 

“Great…” Tate sighed just loud enough for Violet to hear him. She smiled a little and they watched Heather make herself at home in the desk in front of hers with her gigantic purple binder of completed and aced assignments; her perfume that smelled like candy and her father’s money and her general presence made Violet, Tate, and anyone else being addressed by her feel small. 

“So,” Heather started, “I think we should split the project into pieces between the four of us. You know, to make sure that everyone pulls their own weight.” Tate didn’t need to look at her to know that she was looking, and talking specifically about, him. He rolled his eyes and began to doodle little shapes in the margin of his open notebook, carefully avoiding looking in Heather’s direction.

“Tate? Helloo, Earth to Langdon,” Derek’s hand passing in front of Tate’s eyes shocked his wandering thoughts back into his body. 

“Yeah. Sorry. I’m listening.” 

“So, Derek and I will do the essay writing, you and Violet do the creative poster part thing, and we all meet at the library on Friday to finish, got it?” 

“I can’t,” Tate replied, “I can’t on Friday.” 

“Of course you can’t,” Heather was indignant, like she had expected from the beginning that Tate would go out of his way to make this process as difficult as possible for her. 

“I’m not bailing. I just can’t do it on Friday. Can we just pick another day?” 

She sighed, “Fine. Saturday then,” the ring of the school bell cut her off before she could tac on whatever mean and condescending remark she had planned to punctuate her sentence with. Students filed out of the room and Tate, who could feel his face flush with embarrassment, started to pack up his things. 

“So why not Friday?” He turned to see that it was Violet who had asked the question. He couldn’t sense any judgment in her tone; only genuine curiosity. 

“I have to go to therapy on Friday,” he replied, more honest than he usually would have been with anyone other than Jack or maybe his sister. 

“Okay, cool,” Violet flung her bag over her shoulder, “how much of that conversation did you actually hear? You looked like your soul left your body.” 

“Uh... The end of it?”

“I figured. We’re making the poster, Heather and Derek are doing the writing. We can work on it at my house after school tomorrow. See you around.” She was halfway to the door before Tate could even think of something to say. 

***

The next day, Tate found Violet waiting for him on the sidewalk outside of the school and the two began walking to Violet’s house. They’d never been alone together before; or, not for any length of time. He was nervous, more nervous than he thought he’d be— a thought which made him even more nervous on top of the nerves he was already struggling to stomach. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. 

“Can I have one?” Violet asked, he gave her the one from his hand and pulled out another for himself. They stopped walking long enough for him to light hers for her and then they continued on. Tate watched as the early October breeze made the ends of Violet’s hair flutter underneath her hat. The street was quiet, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever been down it despite living in the area most of his life, and he could hear the leaves rustle in the wind. 

“So,” he began hesitant to speak and risk making things even more awkward— awkward for him, at least, as Violet seemed as cool and neutral as ever— “where did you move here from?”

“The East coast. Boston.” 

“Do you miss it?” 

“I miss the weather,” she said exhaling smoke and watching it disappear into the afternoon. “I miss seeing the leaves change. Back in Boston all the trees would be orange by now, but here they’re still only barely starting to go yellow.”

“I know what you mean, I love it when the leaves change.” 

“Have you always lived here? In California, I mean.” 

“Yeah pretty much. But I’ve never liked it. There’s nowhere else in the world that’s so full and so empty all at once. There’s millions of people and no soul, you know?”  
She smiled at him, an actual smile like he had said something that answered a question she’d been trying to ask but didn’t know how. They walked quietly next to each other until they arrived at the foot of Violet’s driveway. Tate, distracted by the nerves in his stomach and the girl at his side, hadn’t realized where they were until that moment. 

“Hey, I live like a street over from here. I didn’t notice because I usually take the together way around, we’re almost neighbors.”

“Really? Can you see your house from here?” 

Tate turned and pointed towards a house with a white cone-shaped roof and red brick exterior on the end of the street and on the opposite side. “That one, over there. You can see the roof sort of.” 

“Oh wow, it’s kind of spooky. Suits you. Come on,” Tate followed her up the driveway and into her house. 

“Your parents aren’t home,” he said less as a question and more as a statement of fact. 

“No, my mom is probably out shopping for things that will make the house feel more like a home and less like a prison, and my dad is working.” 

“So you guys don’t really get along then?”

“You could say that.” 

Violet’s room was at the end of a long hallway at the top of a flight of stairs. The wood floors creaked under their steps like the ones in Tate’s own house, but he noticed that there was something distinctly newer and more loved about Violet’s home. Tate hadn’t realized that he had been imagining what her room looked like until she opened the door and he saw that it looked exactly how he had been imagining it would. Her walls were painted emerald green— the smell of fresh paint lingered in the air— and lined with string lights which gave the room an almost golden glow. On one wall she had a large bookshelf, full, with two smaller stacks of books on the floor next to it. A blue rug laid in stark contrast to the wooden floor, her bed stuck out from the wall with more pillows than he thought anyone could reasonably need, and her desk was littered with pens, papers, candles, and CDs. A large chalkboard hung above the desk, the bottom corner of it cut off behind a radio. 

While Violet opened her closet and began pulling arts and crafts supplies down from a shelf inside, Tate investigated her CD collection. It was much more extensive than his own, but he thought that she had good taste: Hole, Sonic Youth, The Cranberries— there was a distinct lack of Nirvana and way too much Morrisey, but he could forgive her for that. 

“Shit… Come on…” Violet muttered, barely audible. Tate turned to find her standing on her tiptoes in her closet reaching for a box of markers pushed too far back on the shelf for her to reach.

“Oh here,” he said, “let me get it.” He walked up behind her and, reaching over her head, grabbed the markers from the shelf, and handed them to her. She looked up at him for half a moment and smiled before going back to the space she set up for them in the middle of the floor. He thought her hair smelled like lavender.  
For the next couple of hours, they worked diligently on their project. Tate proved himself to be a fairly good artist, though Violet was better, and Violet did the writing since her handwriting looked like she had been practicing and perfecting every letter shape for years and Tate’s looked like his hand couldn’t keep up with his mind’s pace; scribbled and rushed. By the time the sun had started set, they were more than halfway done. Violet got up to change the music while Tate stayed crouched over the poster coloring the lantern she’d drawn in with a green marker; he rolled his cardigan sleeves up to his elbows to avoid smearing the wet ink on the page. 

“Is that what you’re in therapy for?” Violet said from across the room. She was looking at him, at his crudely bandaged arm. He didn’t answer, turning his attention back to his drawing. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to embarrass you or anything.” She was sitting down on the floor next to him now, he stopped and turned to look at her. 

“I’m not embarrassed, I just don’t talk about it.” 

“I understand,” she replied; something about the way she looked at him, and the way she gently reached out to hold his hand in hers told him that she did understand—fully. 

“Want some tea?”

Tate nodded and Violet stood, reaching her hand out to him she pulled him up from the floor and they laughed together as they went through the long hallway, down the wooden steps, and into the kitchen. 

“Do you like California so far? Besides the depressive lack of distinct seasons that is.” Tate asked as Violet pulled 2 mugs from a cabinet. 

“I like some things about it,” she replied, turning around to look at him sitting in a chair at her kitchen counter. The setting sun gave the kitchen a warm yellow glow. He smiled; she rolled her eyes at him, “Don’t let it go to your head. I meant that I like the beach.” 

“Of course, I wouldn’t have assumed anything more.” The thought that someone like her could like someone like him made his stomach tighten a little bit; he did like her, but he was worried that once she knew him as more than the guy-she-sits-next-to that her opinion of him would not stay so positive. He was worried she’d hate him, or worse: that she’d start to see him how he sees himself. 

“Green, black, or Earl Grey?” 

“What? Oh, uh, Earl Grey, please,” he ran his fingers through his hair and tried to seem less like he’d just fallen into the deepest end of a pool of negative energy.

“Good choice,” Violet placed one of the mugs in front of him and sat in the chair to his left. For a moment they sat in silence and watched spoons swirl dark, orange-scented tea around in large ceramic mugs. Tate looked over at Violet who looked up and over at him. 

“Can we skip the small talk? Neither of us are particularly good at it, and we can only talk about the beach and the weather and the stupid high school we’re forced to attend for so long, right?” Violet spoke quickly, as if she was speaking her final words with her last breath in a room without any air.

“Absolutely,” he answered just as quickly, each shifting in their chairs to face the other. 

“Before I started sitting next to you in English you sat completely alone in the back corner of the room with 2 empty seats between you and the nearest person?”

“Is that a question or a statement of fact?”

“Why? Is the question.” 

“Because I don’t want to participate.”

"In class?” she asked, “Or in general life?” 

“Both.” 

“So the apathy and indifference aren’t feigned?”

“Nope.” 

“Is that why you quit the track team?”

“How did you know I was on the track team?” he sat up a little straighter and looked at her, confusion clearly visible on his face. 

“I saw your picture in the trophy case in the hallway off the gym. There’s a ribbon with your name on it too, so you must have been pretty good. Why quit?” 

“I didn’t quit. You can’t be on a team if you’re failing classes.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be. It’s my fault. And my turn. You chose to sit next to me even though there are like 5 empty desks in that room?”

“Question, or statement of fact?” Violet looked at him with the smug grin he’d just given her, he rolled his eyes. “I’m assuming the question is ‘why?’”

“If you’d care to share, yes.” 

“I thought you looked like someone who had the potential to be cool,” her tone purposely and overly nonchalant. 

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Am I?” 

“I haven’t decided yet,” she took picked up her cup and took a sip from it. “But I’ll let you know when I do.” 

“If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?”

“Paris. Not the touristy parts, I'm uninterested in the Eiffel Tower; I want to see the catacombs. What’s your favorite color and your favorite shade of it?” 

“Blue, really dark blue. Almost black,” he said. 

“Really? Me too. Like a night sky without any stars.” Tate looked at her, directly into her eyes, and decided that he could sit there looking at her for always and eternity and never get tired of it. 

Their quiet moment was suddenly interrupted by a car door closing in the driveway. 

“Shit… It’s probably my mom,” Violet said. Any sense of calm or joy that’d Tate had seen in her a heartbeat ago was washed off of her face and laid in a puddle on the kitchen floor. 

“I should go.”

“Yeah…” 

Tate followed Violet back to her room grabbed his backpack and the cardigan he’d taken off earlier. Plastic bags rustling together and settling on the counter officially announced the return of Violet’s mother. The air was still and Tate felt like the sound of their shoes hitting the steps echoed and filled the whole house; he thought about how his home wasn’t the only one so ill at ease that the tension could be cut with a knife and served on a platter. Violet’s mother, a tall blonde woman who Violet very clearly resembled but went out of her way to try not to, came around the corner just as Tate and Violet had reached the large front door. 

“Oh! Violet, hi, who’s—”

“Leaving. He’s leaving,” Violet cut her off before she could finish her sentence. Tate smiled at her briefly, not sure if she had or could see it. Violet opened the door and Tate followed her out onto her porch. The sun had fully set by then and the cool breeze from the afternoon had turned into a wind that rattled the leaves and made a dog in some yard somewhere bark. 

“I’ll uh… See you at school tomorrow,” the words came out of his mouth more awkwardly than he would have liked. 

“Yeah. Tomorrow…” 

They lingered for a moment on her porch and their words seemed to hang in the air, suspended in the wind. Violet took a step closer to him, stood on her tiptoes with her hands on his shoulders, and kissed his cheek. 

“Bye, Tate,” she said quickly and quietly. The door closed behind her. Before he could find his voice again, he was alone.


	4. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Picking up immediately where chapter 3 leaves off, Violet tries to make heads or tails about her feelings for Tate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***General Trigger Warning***

Violet stood pressed against the door looking through the peephole and watched him leave— he turned around once to look back at her home, at the porch he had, only seconds ago, been kissed on, before disappearing down the dark street and into the night. 

“So,” said a voice from behind her, “do I get to know who that was?” Vivien Harmon, her mother, typically knew better than to try and involve herself in aspects of her Violet’s life that she hadn’t specifically brought to her for help; however, it was unlike Violet to try and sneak a boy in and out of their house and Vivien’s curiosity was getting the better of her.

“He’s from school, we’re in the same project group” Violet replied, already preparing herself for the discussion she knew would follow this exchange. 

“Does he have a name?" Her question met with no response, only rolled eyes and a scoff. "I’m not mad or anything, Vi, just intrigued.”

“Tate, and there’s nothing to be intrigued by or about.” Eager to end the conversation before it became even more uncomfortable, if it was possible to make it more uncomfortable than it already was, Violet turned away from her and started back into the kitchen. Vivien followed closely behind. 

“Mom, I don’t really have any intention of continuing this heart-to-heart with you.” 

“Vi, having feelings won’t kill you, and neither will talking to me about them for once.”

“No thanks.” 

“Okay, fine. School talk. What kind of project is it?” 

Sighing, Violet sat down in the same chair she’d been in next to Tate only a few minutes ago. She did feel something for him, but not a straightforward ‘something.’ Not the kind of something some people feel when they fall in love at first sight or know from the first introduction that they’re meant to be together for the rest of their lives. She felt for Tate the kind of ‘something’ that is both intense and subtle, like the butterflies-in-stomach sensation that accompanies it. The kind of feeling that keeps love indescribable by being indescribable itself.

“Vi? What kind of project are you working on?” 

“A poster. For English. It isn’t a big deal.”

Vivien stood across the counter from Violet with her palms pressed flat against the granite, she paused for a moment and examined her daughter’s face like a chess player scanning the board for the next move. Violet wouldn’t look at her, she picked idly at her chipping blue nail polish. Vivien shifted, placing her elbows on the counter and resting her chin in her hands, her demeanor softened. 

“You know,” she started, “he seems like your type.” That kind of brazen commentary was not common conversation between the two and Violet was as surprised at her mother’s boldness as she was infuriated by the insinuation. 

“First of all,” she said, flustered and indignant, “I don’t have a type. Second, even if I did, consider it classified information that I wouldn’t divulge to you. And third, why can't I work on an assignment with someone without the assumption that because I'm a girl I have some attachment to him more deep-seated than our forced, school-designated partnership.” 

“No assumptions; I just mean that he seems like someone that you’d like, or that likes the things you like.”

“You mean he seems weird.” 

“Nice, I mean nice.” 

“You mean weird. It’s not a big deal mom, I know where I stand in relation to my peers on the well-adjusted-teenager scale.” They looked at each other quietly for a moment, each carefully crafting their next lines, unsure of how hard to push before the dam would break and they'd find themselves at each other's throats for the umpteenth time. Vivien wanted to be close to Violet that way some mothers and daughters were; she wanted to be the kind of mother who knew everything about her child, the kind of mom whose child knew that she could say anything and be received with unconditional love and support. Violet was quiet, private, reserved; she hated to be the center of attention or conversation. It isn’t that she didn’t love her mother, she just needed her life and her feelings to be her own and she, like many teenagers, was unsure how to reconcile those two sentiments into a close parent-child relationship. 

“Dinner?” Vivien said hoping to relieve some of the tension between them before it overflowed and drowned them both.

“Take-out?” 

“Pizza?” 

“Pizza,” they did see eye to eye on some things. Vivien turned and pulled a take-out menu from a drawer near the phone, “I’ll come get you when it gets here,” she said as Violet stood and started out of the kitchen. Truce.  
****  
Violet laid sideways across her bed with her arms crossed over her chest and stared up using the ceiling as blank space to work out her thoughts on. She’d kissed him— on his cheek, granted, but a kiss nonetheless. She groaned; half-embarrassed for herself, half surprised that she'd done it in the first place. She barely knew him, and what she did know didn’t paint him in a great light. He was a compulsive absentee, but could she really blame him for not wanting to go to school? He spent his lunch period smoking alone behind the cafeteria, but it wasn’t as if she was over eager to surround herself with her fellow students either. She liked that he didn’t try to bullshit her or say what he thought she’d want to hear to impress her; he mostly just wanted to listen to her talk, about anything really. And she liked that he didn't pretend to be someone that he wasn't or change himself to be more palatable for other people; she'd never made a habit of being who other people wanted her to be and she wasn't about to start on his account. 

Violet closed her eyes and shook her head. "It almost isn’t even worth thinking about," she whispered. Having no reason to believe that he was thinking about her, Violet resolved to not waste any mental or emotional energy on someone who had no intention of reciprocating. Vulnerable was not a position she wanted to find herself in. With a deep exhale she sat up in her bed and looked out of the window across from her. Her world felt still. Calm and quiet. Too quiet, she decided, and got up to turn on the music; something louder and faster than the sound of her thinking.

Her radio sat on the cluttered desk opposite her bed. Candles with pools of hardened wax around their bases, CD cases, and half-finished homework assignments littered the tabletop. The poster she’d been working on still laid on the floor with the box of markers resting on top of it. She turned on the radio and the second verse of a Sonic Youth song filled all the empty space around her. Looking up, she saw that the chalkboard behind her desk had a messy purple heart drawn in the middle of it and inside the heart, in some of the worst handwriting Violet had ever seen, was her name.

"How cliche of him," she thought and smiled to herself.


	5. Birds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ***Trigger Warning: Self-harm mention***

“So, when are you gonna tell her that you’re in love with her?”

“Fuck off.” 

“Oh come on! You’ve been talking to me about her for a month, ‘Violet this,’ and ‘Violet that.’ And now you know for sure that she’s into you! And hey, maybe she’ll get you to lighten up some, huh?”

“I don’t know if you’re really in any position to judge me,” Tate said, reaching over to turn up the volume dial on Jack’s car stereo. He shifted in his seat and rested his against the window watching the city pass by him as they drove away from downtown Los Angeles and into the night. There was always something so strange, Tate thought, about how a place could be so full and so empty at the same time. He laughed softly to himself, realizing that not 12 hours ago he’d shared that same sentiment with Violet. Violet, whose quick goodnight kiss made him feel a lot like Los Angeles too, so full and so empty all at once. 

After walking home from Violet's house, staring at the ceiling for a while, and realizing that if he didn’t get out his thoughts were going to eat him alive, Tate called Jack, who was always more than willing to go for a ride, to pick him up. Rides with Jack normally included screaming along with Nirvana albums and using a skateboard magazine laid across the knees as a table to haphazardly roll joints on. That night, however, was quiet. 

Tate felt like his heart had gone ten rounds against every emotion he knew how to feel. He liked Violet. He liked Violet enough that it made him nervous; vulnerability was relatively uncharted territory him. The problem, he knew, was that he had no idea what to do with love; he knew that he wanted it but he had no idea how to get it, and when he did get it, he had no idea what to do with it. Now, love was looking him dead in the eye, love had kissed him on her porch, and he was at a loss. 

Two songs and a loud silence later, Tate spoke again, “She wouldn’t like me anyway, not after she got to know me.” 

“You don’t know that, man. Underneath the angst and the low self-esteem is a great guy!” 

“Thanks, Jack,” Tate scoffed. “Look, the only people who actually enjoy my company are you and Sadie, and Sadie only because she likes you and you like me so she’s tolerant by association.” The silence took hold again. “It’s different with her,” he said after a little while, “I feel different with her.” 

“Good different?” Jack asked, looking over to watch Tate dig around for a match in the glove compartment. 

“I think so,” he replied, “I hope so.”

***  
Tate moved to silence his alarm clock before it had the chance to begin it’s second sounding. He didn’t need to be woken up; he hadn’t slept. Jack dropped him home after midnight and, after sneaking back into his room through the same window he’d snuck out of, he laid in his bed and tossed and turned and thought and paced circles in his bedroom until the sun started to rise. Then, he sat on the roof ledge just outside of the window and watched his neighborhood wake up; newspapers tossed on front lawns, early risers making coffee in kitchens with open curtains, the neighbor’s dog barking at a bird who’d begun to sing. 

What scared him most, he decided, was not the prospect of Violet not feeling the same, but the idea that she did; the idea that she could like him now, maybe even love him later, and then realized that he was unworthy of any of it. It wasn’t as if he’d never had a crush before, he’d even had girlfriends in the past, but something about Violet— about the way she was the smartest person in the room but didn’t need everyone else to know it, about the way she cared deeply about the things she believed were important and couldn’t care less about the things that weren’t, about the way she wasn’t afraid of anything— was different. Good different. 

The morning had a chill to it. Cold, Tate climbed back into his room and shut the window behind him. The sound of doors opening and closing elsewhere in the house meant that his family had started their day too and Constance would soon be pounding on his door insisting that she drive him to school to ensure that he actually attended. He looked in the mirror and tried and failed to rub the sleep from his eyes. The bandage he’d wrapped around his arm days prior had started to come apart. Carefully, he unwound it and examined the healing cuts, picking at little bits of dried blood until one of them began to bleed. He dabbed the away with a tissue from his bedside table and went into the bathroom to find a new bandage. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub and rewrapping his arm he considered all the different ways he could get out of going to school: feign illness, sneak out the window and take off down the street, let Constance drop him off and bolt at the first stoplight. None of the great-escape options were really all that great. He was resigned to his fate and went back into his own room to get dressed; a pair of jeans from his floor, a black shirt from a pile of black shirts, and a green jacket he’d gotten from the army surplus store that Jack said made him look punk and Constance said made him look classless. 

It rained most of the morning and into the afternoon; a welcome sign that summer was finally behind them and winter slowly but surely approached. The drizzle and general gloom was comforting, it’s easier to have a bad day when the day is feeling bad too: there isn’t any sunshine or bright skies to mock and make you feel like you are the only thing in the world that’s miserable. 

Tate slept through his first class and skipped his second to hide in the “out of order” restrooms in the performing arts building. He thought about taking off— sneaking off campus and going to the beach or sneaking back into his house— but he wanted to see Violet and seeing Violet meant holding out until English.

The rain made his usual lunch hour spot wetter than he would have liked, and he opted instead to seek refuge in the library. He sat on the floor with his backpack in his lap and his book resting closed on top of it. He rested his head against the wall behind him and hoped that maybe a little bit of sleep would ease the headache he’d had since he woke up. 

“Hi,” a voice from above surprised him. Opening his eyes, Violet stood looking down over him. 

“Hey,” he replied, sitting up straighter. 

“We should talk about last night.” She looked nervous; he hadn’t ever seen her look nervous before. 

“We don’t have to. Not if you don’t want to, I mean.” Tate’s heart started to beat a little faster as his mind ran through the list of every possible thing she could be about to say to him in alphabetical order. 

“I want to.” 

“Okay.” 

Violet dropped her bag and sat on the floor across from him leaning against the shelf. The skirt of her dress pooled around her crossed legs and her hair looked damped at the ends.  
“I don’t want things to be weird between us,” she started. Tate felt his shoulders tense and hoped that Violet hadn’t noticed. 

“Okay,” he said.

“Things are complicated.”

“I understand.” 

“I know you do,” she said and smiled at him. A moment passed before she spoke again. “Things are complicated in my life right now, I won’t bore you with the details, but it’s complicated; and I don’t want things between us to be complicated too… I think I used the word ‘complicated’ ten times in that sentence.” Quieting they looked at each other, each trying to read the other’s face. 

Tate’s face turned serious and he tensed again. “I’m sorry,” he said, it was all he could think to say. 

“You don’t have to be sorry,” she paused for a moment. “I like you.” 

“I like you too...” They laughed and some of the tension that had built a wall between them started to chip away. Tate knew his face must have gone bright red and couldn’t figure out how hers hadn’t.

“So… What are you reading?” Switching to a much less awkward and intimidating topic seemed like a good idea. Tate picked up the book and showed the cover to her, National Geographic Field Guide to the Birds of North America, Fifth Edition. 

Reaching out she took the book and flipped through it stopping on a page with a picture of a small black bird with an orange chest and white fringed wings— a Baltimore oriole.  
“I’ve seen this one before,” tilting the book back so Tate could see the picture, “back in Boston in the summers.” He watched her look through the pages and replayed the previous conversation in his head. It made him nervous that she liked him, especially because she liked him enough to tell him that she did; she was a million times braver than he could ever dream of being. She wasn’t afraid of anything. 

“Why do you like birds?” she asked.

“I like that they can fly away. When things get too crazy.”

“Which one’s your favorite?” Violet handed the book back to Tate who turned the pages with the speed and certainty of someone who has each page committed to memory and knows exactly where to find exactly what he’s looking for. 

“This one,” he said. Violet shifted and moved so that she was sitting right next to him looking over his arm at a page in the book with a small colorful bird on it; tachycineta thalassina— the violet-green swallow. She leaned against his shoulder as she read. He watched her from the corner of his eye and, without meaning to, found himself staring at her totally absorbed by the way her eyes moved across the page and she absently played with the charm at the end of her long necklace. It was as if the entire rest of the world dissipated and they were all that was left; alone together. He stayed there, totally and completely lost in her, until a different voice from a ways away brought him back to reality.

“Look alive, Langdon!” Tate turned and saw Jack on the other side of the short bookshelf in front of him, his arm wrapped around Sadie— a short, red-haired girl who fancied herself something of a goth. “I thought I’d find you here,” he said. 

“What are you doing here? I thought you were allergic to libraries.” 

“I am, I’m risking my health for you. Come on, we’re getting out of here.” Jack’s attention turned from Tate to Violet. “Who’s this?” 

“Jack, Violet. Violet, Jack.” Tate said. 

“Hi,” Violet said shyly. 

“Jonathan Dewey, a pleasure to meet you. Please, call me Jack,” he said with a flourish and a bow. 

“Ignore him,” Tate told Violet.

“So you’re the Violet,” Jack said. 

“We’ve heard a lot about you,” Sadie added with a laugh. Tate knew their mocking was in good spirits, but he couldn’t help but feel embarrassed. “Oh my god,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. 

“Anyway,” Jack started, “let’s go, Sadie wants ice cream and I don’t want to spend another second in his hell-hole.” Tate looked to Violet and back to Jack.

“Violet can come too!” Sadie said.

“Yeah, bring your girlfriend with you, Langdon. Come on!” Jack and Sadie started walking towards the library exit and Tate stood, picking up his bag. 

“Do you want to come?” He asked Violet, hoping that she'd ignore that last part. 

“Yeah, let’s go,” Violet said, smiling. Tate reached out and helped her up from the floor. They followed Jack and Sadie to Jack’s car; a blue station wagon with brown wood paneling that looked more like a boat than a car. Tate and Violet sat next to each other in the back seat. The small part of him that felt guilty for getting Violet involved with his juvenile delinquency was overshadowed by the part of him that was excited to be spending actual time with her. 

A few minutes later the four of them piled out of Jack’s car and into the ice cream parlor, ordering cones and then walking to a nearby park with picnic benches. Violet and Sadie, as it turned out, had 2 classes together but hadn’t ever spoken before; they decided that from then on, they’d be lab partners in chemistry and sit nearer to each other in math— both happy to have found someone else “cool.” 

“How long have you all known each other?” Violet asked. 

“Me and Tate played soccer in grade school, ended up at the same high school and we were both on the track team. He wasn’t very good, but he was the only other guy I knew who was into punk rock, so I took pity on him,” Jack answered. 

Tate laughed and continued where Jack left off, “Yeah and Sadie and Jack have been on and off like a light switch since freshman year so really it was their undying love that brought the three of us together.” Sadie shoved Tate’s shoulder and he grabbed his arm, pretending to be hurt. She shoved him again before turning her attention to Violet. She asked her where she was from and how long she’d been at the school; Violet told her about Boston and moving and new school angst— excluding, of course, the dark and dirty details of her parents’ marital strife and the sibling that could have been; things she hadn’t even gotten the courage to tell Tate about, unbeknownst to him. Tate listened intently to Violet talk about her life; it was all things he’d already heard before in the weeks they’d known each other, but there was something about the way she talked that captured his attention fully no matter what she was talking about. 

Absently, he pulled a cigarette from his pocket, put it into his mouth, and lit it.

“Those things will kill you, Langdon,” Jack said teasing.

Before he could take the first drag, Violet took the cigarette from his lips and put it between hers, claiming it as her own. She raised her eyebrows and him and Tate smiled and laughed a little, half shocked half impressed. He pulled out another cigarette, put that one in and mouth, and hesitated for a before he lit it; he watched Violet exhale smoke, the sunlight catching her hair and making it sparkle, her smile when she laughed at some joke that Sadie had made but he hadn’t heard. 

Jack looked at Tate looking at Violet— like his world had stopped spinning, like he had just seen something so beautiful that it’d stopped him dead in his tracks— and realized that he had never seen Tate look so happy as he did in that moment.


	6. Knuckles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ***Trigger Warning: Mental Illness Mention, Abuse Mention***

Violet sat, legs swinging, on a short stone wall just outside of the public library. Their group wasn’t supposed to meet for another half an hour, but she and Tate had decided they’d go early so that she could show him some of the poetry she liked, something other than 18th-century Romantic poets. She’d been sitting there on the wall, waiting for him, for over 20 minutes and she was beginning to wonder if in the 12 hours between making the decision to meet and meeting Tate had already forgotten; or maybe he just didn’t care enough to show up. He wasn’t obligated to show up for her, she reminded herself, his only job was to go to the library, finish his portion of the project, and try not to kill Heather in the process. Even still, she couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sadness that he’d bailed on her; and embarrassment at knowing that she’d let herself care so much in the first place. 

20 more minutes pass and still no sign of Tate. Violet’s stomach did backflips and she had to stay focused on her breathing to keep from crying— one of the things she hated the most about herself was that she cried so easily. The little bit of sadness she felt was replaced with anger, at Tate and at herself for not trusting her gut about him. She knew he was flaky; she knew he was less than reliable; she knew he was reckless, but she let him in anyway. She wanted so badly to believe that the things other people said about Tate weren’t true that she hadn’t really stopped to consider the second option— that maybe they were true. Violet wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve, looking up she watched Derek exit the driver’s side of a car worth more than her dad made in a year, Heather was the passenger. The two began walking towards the front steps of the library when Heather, having seen Violet, turned to her direction.

“Hi, Violet,” she said. 

“Hey,” 

“Are you coming in?”

“Yeah. I’m just… waiting for Tate…” 

“Ah,” she replied and scoffed. Heather started to walk away but turned and faced Violet again. “Look, I know you’re new to the school and weren’t around to watch Tate Langdon’s very public freak out last year, so a word to the wise: stay away from him. He’s a freak,” and with that, Heather walked up the steps and through the glass double doors leaving Violet alone.

***  
Tate’s room was painted the kind of blue that’s so dark it makes mid-day feel like late-night. The only light came from the window through the open blinds and the cloudy day only served to make the room seem even more gloomy than it already was. He was alone, his family left earlier in the morning leaving Tate by himself in the house for the entirety of the weekend; so far he hadn’t done much more than look at the ceiling, watch the light travel across his room—the sun moving across the sky and passing over his walls as the day slipped away from him— and let the house be silent around him. His cheek stung. Constance slapped him that morning; opting out of the family trip meant putting a crack in the “perfect family” façade that she continuously tried to sculpt despite all of the evidence that the family was not, had never been, and never would be perfect. Alone in the house, in the silence, he felt small; so small that his chest felt like it would cave in under the collapsing pressure.

Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

Inhale. Hold. Exhale.

The doorbell rang and he ignored it. A second time; the ringing echoed through the house. After a third ring, Tate rolled out of his bed, pulled on a t-shirt, and begrudgingly walked downstairs, two steps at a time, with the intention of telling whoever it was at the door to fuck off. He opened it and froze; Violet stood on the other side. Arms crossed, staring at him. 

“Where the hell were you?” Violet asked, clearly annoyed. 

“Hello to you too.” Tate replied.

Ignoring his sarcasm, she continued, “You know you were supposed to meet us at the library 4 hours ago.” 

“Is that a question, or a statement of fact?” 

“Bullshit,” she rolled her eyes. 4 hours ago, the other 3 members of his group arrived at the library to finish their project. Tate hadn’t forgotten. He’d planned on going; but the thought of even leaving his bed let alone walking to the library and working with people he hated on a project that he couldn’t care less about was just too much, even if it did mean that he’d get to see Violet. 

“I’m sorry,” he said; there was nothing else to say. 

“Heather is pissed at you, you know.” He stood there leaning against the door frame looking at Violet for what felt like forever before she spoke again. “Are you okay?”

“Do you want to come in?” 

Violet hesitated and looked Tate up and down—he looked like hell, she thought— and then followed him inside. 

“No one’s home,” he said answering a question Violet hadn’t asked him yet, but he’d assumed she would. Tate lead Violet up the stairs, down the hall, and to his room. The old wooden staircase and dark wooden floors were not unlike those in her own home; however, Violet couldn’t help but feel that there was something less than home-y about Tate’s house. The stairwell was lined with family pictures and school portraits; in each one, Tate's face reflected back variout levels of despondency. 

Violet sat in the chair at Tate’s desk while he sat on the edge of his bed. His room suited him, she thought. The walls covered in posters, the stacks of books in a corner in lieu of a bookshelf; she’d have expected nothing less. 

“So, why didn’t you come to the library?” Violet asked. 

“I didn’t want to,” he replied, curter than intended. “Did you come here to tell me off?” 

“No, you didn’t show up and you didn’t say anything, so I got a little bit worried. Believe it or not, Tate, I have the capacity to care about the wellbeing of others.” She paused. “That, and both of my parents are home which means my house is a battleground and it’s probably going to be a bloodbath.” 

“Your parents fight?” he asked, relieved to shift the topic of conversation away from himself. 

“You could say that.”

“What would you say?”

“I’d say—” she paused for a moment, “—I’d say that since the entire reason we moved 2000 miles from Boston to Los Angeles in the first place was that immediately after my mom had an insanely gruesome miscarriage my dad cheated on her with a college student young enough to be my sister, he deserves whatever he has coming to him.” 

“If you love someone you should never hurt them,” Tate said, deadly serious. 

“Right??” Violet reached out taking his hand in hers. Hands held together tightly, Tate’s eyes found Violet’s and made a home there for what felt like an eternity. He brushed his thumb lightly across the back of her hand which fit small into his. She felt so fragile, he thought. How could someone so strong be so fragile?

“What happened to your face?” Violet asked. She spoke softly, easing her way into the question like a swimmer dipping a toe in to test the waters. Tate put his hand to his cheek, he could still feel the skin stinging and he didn’t need to look at it to know there was a 24-karat-gold-with-diamond-in-lay shaped bruise forming. 

“My mother— Constance thinks that if we make-believe ‘happy family’ long enough that it’ll manifest into reality. I don’t pretend to be happy.”

“What makes you happy?” Violet asked, taking his hand back; his vein showed bright blue through his skin and his knuckles were bruised and angry. “Honestly happy, no make-believe.”

“You.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short, kinda sweet, not quite to the point. Sorry it took a month, my mental health hasn't been awesome lately and I had to rewrite it 3 times because it started to toe the line between angst and straight-up vent writing. I hope you like it


	7. JUPITER'S

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The music wasn’t quiet, Jack and Sadie definitely weren’t quiet, but Violet and Tate sat next to each other in the back seat of Jack’s station wagon looking out their respective windows each taking in their own view in almost complete silence for a majority of the trip; each wanting to speak, wanting to spill their proverbial guts all over the fake leather upholstery, but having no idea where or how or when to start."
> 
> ****GENERAL TRIGGER WARNING***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide mention, self-harm mention, alcohol mention***

“So, are you coming with us tonight?” Sadie asked, dropping her bag at her feet and leaning against the locker next to Violet’s. Since she started hanging out with Tate, Violet and Sadie had become almost-friends— they sat next to each other in shared classes and spoke during group outings but hadn’t quite reached the sleepover and spill-your-guts stage of their relationship. Violet had, however, been invited to join the 3 of them in pre-Halloween festivities: piling into Jack’s station wagon and driving 2 hours to Bakersfield for a concert in a semi-abandoned building that promised to be “totally sick, in a good way.” 

“Definitely, I’ll meet you guys out front after last period?” Violet shoved a book into her locker and closed it.

“Yup, and then we pick up Tate from his house. He’s playing hooky, something about being sick but I don’t really buy that for a single second.” 

“I hope he’s alright...”

“I’m sure he’s fine. Not too sick to come party with us tonight apparently. And not to sick to take you on an uber romantic Halloween date tomorrow, maybe he’ll propose!!”  
“Oh my god stop,” Violet became very aware of the blush spreading across her face and hoped that Sadie hadn’t seen it. She had, of course she did, and carried on in a sing song voice:  
“Violet and Tate sittin’ in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G”

“That’s right, I forget we’re in the 5th grade again.”

Violet liked Sadie a lot; and, despite being her opposite in almost every way, Sadie really liked Violet too. She liked how smart she was, how she honestly didn’t care what anyone else thought of her, and how when she did care she did so passionately and intensely. Sadie blew a bubble with her gum and popped it loudly, the chain on her jacket— which was actually Jack’s, 3 sizes too big, and draped her shoulders more like a leather cloak than a leather jacket— gave a sharp metallic clank with every step she took and her boots stomped against the hallway linoleum. 

“Can I ask you something? About Tate?”

“Yeah of course,” Sadie replied. “Wait, why? Is something wrong?” 

“No nothing’s wrong. Just…something that Heather Green said to me at the library a few days ago.”

“Oh God, Heather. Whatever she said I’m sure it’s total bullshit.” 

“She said something about Tate having a ‘public freakout’ last year? And that I should stay away from him…” Violet turned to see that Sadie had stopped walking 3 steps behind her and stood stationary, staring at her. Her face went serious and static, she looked like a statue wrapped in an old, tattered leather jacket.

“Vi, did you talk to Tate about it?” 

She shook her head no in response.

“Okay. Come on.” Sadie grabbed Violet’s wrist and led her down the hall, around a corner, and down a flight of stairs. She pushed open the door to a bathroom clearly labeled ‘out of order’ and ushered Violet inside. Violet had heard rumor of a closed bathroom where other kids went to smoke weed and ditched class but hadn’t expected the rumor to be true. A group of underclassmen sat on the counter, half in the sinks, dispersed without so much as a word as soon as Sadie entered the room. 

“Okay,” she said, hopping up onto the counter herself. “What do you want to know?”

“What happened last year?”

“Last year—” Sadie took a deep breath and sighed, “Tate went up to the roof of the science building and was gonna jump off… We knew he was having a hard time, but we had no idea it was that bad. I think Jack still feels a little bit guilty for not being able to help, but it’s not like there was anything he could’ve done.” Violet’s stomach tie itself in a knot so tight she was worried it would never come undone.

“Tate spent a week in a hospital and a week at home and when he came back, he was different. Quit the track team, stopped talking almost all together; it was terrible. It was like he was dead already and he was just waiting for his body to catch up. Anyway, don’t tell him I told you. He doesn’t want you to know.”

“Why?”

“He doesn’t want to scare you away,” noticing that Violet had gone eerily quiet and realizing that, if she listened closely, she could hear the gears in Violet’s brain running a-mile-a-minute, Sadie reached out and took Violet’s hand in hers. Gently, with only her fingertips, Sadie pushed up Violet’s chin until they were looking each other directly in the eye— Sadie’s honey brown against Violet’s murky green— and said: 

“You know he loves you, right?”  
*****  
You didn’t need to be inside of the club to hear the music. Violet didn’t even need to get out of the car to feel the bass vibrating in her chest, the guitar ringing in her ears. The “club” was a long-abandoned concert hall turned underground punk venue where the music was loud, the beer was cheap, and the doorman never carded so long as Mr. Lincoln could vouch for you. A dim neon sign half hanging on for dear life from a pole on the roof flashed “JUPITER’S” in orange letters.

The drive from Los Angeles to Bakersfield was quieter than Violet would have liked. The music wasn’t quiet, Jack and Sadie definitely weren’t quiet, but Violet and Tate sat next to each other in the back seat of Jack’s station wagon looking out their respective windows each taking in their own view in almost complete silence for a majority of the trip; each wanting to speak, wanting to spill their proverbial guts all over the fake leather upholstery, but having no idea where or how or when to start.

JUPITER’S smelled like stale beer and cigarettes, as if someone had preprocessed an “Early 90’s: Dive Bar Scented Candle” and lit 100 to set the mood. The barstools wobbled and the framed posters lining each wall shook and the entire room pulsed as the music blared out of the large speakers on the small stage. The people were unrestrained, unruly, and completely alive; the band played on. Immediately, Jack and Sadie pushed their way to the center of the crowd and danced—threw themselves around and against the sea of bodies— together. 

Two songs later, Sadie emerged and, grabbing Tate and Violet by one hand each, announced, “if you guys can’t have fun on your own, I’m gonna make you have fun!!” before dragging them into the crowd behind her just as the next band started and the music picked up again. In an instant, the entire mood shifted; the world felt a million times lighter. Maybe it was the booze or the heat in the room or the pure uncut joy, but whatever it was, Violet’s fingertips tingled and her heart pounding in time with the drums.

As the second band finished, Tate leaned down and said into Violet’s ear, “I’m going to the bar, do you want to come?” She nodded and he took her hand, leading her out of the crowd and over to a bar that blended in with the wall and the people so much that it could only be seen if you were looking for it. The bartender eyed Tate wearily and handed him two plastic cups with a look that said, “there’s no way you’re legal so you better tip well.” Tate gave one of the cups to Violet. They stood close together at a tall table with no chairs and talked while the stage was being cleared and set up for the next group. Any tension that existed between them melted away; any walls they’d built were crumbled. Violet told Tate that she knew about what he’d done and that she understood, and that sometimes she hurt just as bad as he hurt; her sleeve rolled her elbow to reveal 2 perfectly straight rows of pale white scars— a stark contrast to Tate’s jagged, raised, and uneven. For almost an hour and over the noise they talked about anything and everything; the world around them fading into the backdrop.

Across the room, Violet saw Sadie waving at them from a corner booth. She nudged Tate and the two picked up their drinks and began the perilous trip from one side of the inebriated landscape to the other. Three-quarters of the way there, a guy not much older than them but twice as drunk crashed into Violet, spilling her drink all over her dress, onto her shoes, and onto the floor. Tate grabbed him by the collar and knocked him to the floor with a right hook.

“Hey! Fuck you, asshole!” Violet yelled to the offender now laying on the floor and nursing a bloody nose in a puddle of warm beer at her feet. 

“Are you okay?” Tate asked Violet as Jack and Sadie raced over to them. Sadie took Violet back to the bar to get napkins. 

“Hey we need to go. That guy has friends and I don’t think they like you!” Jack said putting a hand on Tate’s shoulder and pointing him towards the exit. The four of them went out the door and into the chilly night, the JUPITER’S sign casting a faint orange glow over the parking lot. Violet sat on the station wagon’s trunk with Sadie and continued trying to dry her beer stained clothing.

“Sorry, Vi, you’re just gonna have to smell like a bar forever,” Sadie said with a laugh after running out of napkins; she hopped off the trunk and into Jack’s arms. He spun her around before setting her back gently on the ground. 

“Greeat,” Violet said sarcastically, “Now I’m freezing.” Tate slipped off his green flannel shirt and wrapped it around Violet’s shoulders.

“Thanks,” she said with a smile and leaned in to kiss his forehead. She reached into his shirt’s pocket and took out his cigarettes and a lighter. Sitting there on the trunk with his shirt draped over her shoulders in the flickering orange light, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The kind of beauty that you want to take a picture of but can’t get the lighting just so, that you try to write about, but you can’t ever find the words for. The kind of beauty that’s messy and real and so distinctly, undeniably alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should probably re-tag this to reflect the fact that it's more a series of vaguely related one-shots about whatever I want to write about at any given moment than it is an actual story with a plot, but it is what it is. No one asked and it wasn't important enough to write in, but in my head the band they went to see was Fugazi. The next chapter will be Halloween. For real this time. It might even have a plot. 
> 
> Thanks for all the nice comments, I really appreciate them!


End file.
